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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
But what if I already invested my money in gold?
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On October 30 2016 10:07 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2016 10:05 WhiteDog wrote:On October 30 2016 09:49 Nyxisto wrote:On October 30 2016 09:33 WhiteDog wrote:
You don't see the obvious flaw in your logic ? Do you not understand that Assad being evil does not make the rebel godly and good. From an occidental perspective, our engagement in the conflict should seek, if possible, the best solution for syrian and for occidentals. I'm not sure arming islamic groups is a good solution in regard to our interests, nor is it for most of the non muslim syrians.
Syria is such a clusterfuck at this point anyway ; a majority of the fighters are not even syrian anymore, most of the high officials of daesh are iraqis, it could very well both a civil war and a conquest.
I don't think anybody qualifies as good in any meaningful sense which seems hardly possible given how this war has developed, but I don't think anybody can argue that a population can live under a genocidal dictator that kills his own population almost indiscriminately. In that context arguing against "islamist rebels" simpl makes no sense. Given the circumstances that isn't some especially bad group. If there was some sizeable portion of secular, peaceful people who you could hand the country I'd say go for it, but that option doesn't exist. So you're okay to arm islamist groups is what you're saying ? but dude, assad n stuff. how can you possibly not help topple the evil murderer killing billions of syrians every minute?
The Violations Documentation Centre said just more than 147,000 civilians had been killed between the start of the war in 2011 and 11 October.
"It only attributes deaths with clear evidence so not all are accounted for, but its records hold the Syrian government and affiliated militia responsible for 92,000 civilian deaths, Russian forces for 3,412, Syrian opposition fighters, excluding Isis, for 2,470, and Isis for 3,078. It attributes 768 to the international coalition.
Syrians, especially progressive ones, find it bewildering that so many supposedly similar-minded people worldwide don’t ally with the moderate opposition, and seem to gloss over the sickening abuses of the Assad regime and Russia,” Sammonds said. “Criticisms of the regime and Russia are followed in the same breath with condemnations of the US, whose abuses are far, far fewer.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/reality-check/2016/oct/12/reality-check-are-us-led-airstrikes-on-syrians-as-bad-as-russias
How would you characterise this?
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On October 30 2016 10:33 Nyxisto wrote:
How would you characterise this?
An exercise in looking at it from a narrow-minded perspective and a failure to consider the realistic alternatives, mostly.
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On October 30 2016 10:30 ChristianS wrote:But what if I already invested my money in gold?
Smart guy.
Gold will shoot up when Trump is elected next month.
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On October 30 2016 10:36 LegalLord wrote:An exercise in looking at it from a narrow-minded perspective and a failure to consider the realistic alternatives, mostly.
I don't get it, how is clinging to the one guy who is on a killing spree not narrow minded and how am I discarding the alternatives here? Sticking with Assad means not considering the alternatives, which as the article points out by the way will alienate the last remaining moderate forces if the conflict goes on.
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On October 30 2016 09:56 biology]major wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2016 09:45 Ropid wrote:On October 30 2016 07:25 Plansix wrote:
In this case I'm not even sold on the crime itself. If the server lead to someone death, people being at risk or sort of substantive damage of American interests, I might be on board with the claims of corruption. But entire investigation has been all bluster with very little substance. Its about "mismanagement of top secret emails" but no one can really tell us exactly what dangerous secrets were exposed. Or even prove that they were exposed. While looking around the last 24 hours, I've seen speculation somewhere that this is connected to an US attorney office in NYC, the one with US Attorney Preet Bharara at the top. His office seems to do very high profile stuff, see here his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_BhararaThe investigation into Anthony Weiner's wiener is done by prosecutors under him. Here is a news article about them getting to his IT devices: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/22/politics/first-on-cnn-us-attorney-investigating-weiner-sexting-allegations/This is just around a month old. This event should be how documents involving Clinton have gotten into new hands. Comey had originally explained in front of that certain Congress committee that there was nothing super interesting on Clinton's servers. He said he thinks that no US attorney would prosecute whatever was found, and that's the reason the FBI investigation into Clinton's email affair was put to rest. He can't explain this in detail because things are classified, but he promised things were boring. Maybe US Attorney Bharara has found something on those IT devices that will make him open investigation into Clinton, and Comey was messaged this. Maybe Comey bent truth a little when he testified in front of Congress because of political pressure. He now has to rescue the FBI's reputation and came out with that letter to get in front of what Bharara will do next. If you search around a little, there's a lot of several month old news articles about Bharara and the Clinton Foundation. He was supposedly doing a probe into the foundation to see if an investigation should be started or not. The problem is that those news articles seem to all be from media like dailymail.co.uk. There's nothing in reputable media, but reputable journalists routinely show up in Podesta emails with back and forth discussion before releasing articles. This makes you develop conspiracy theories and it's pretty depressing because it all fits together so well. Damn, This Preet guy would seriously drain the swamp in Washington, we need people like him.
the amount of actual indictable corruption in washington isn't that high.
even if you had omniscient info, it wouldn't reach the level to convict many people.
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On October 30 2016 10:36 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2016 10:30 ChristianS wrote:But what if I already invested my money in gold? Smart guy. Gold will shoot up when Trump is elected next month.
Out of curiosity, what are the conditions, if any, under which gold would go down?
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On October 30 2016 10:54 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2016 10:36 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On October 30 2016 10:30 ChristianS wrote:But what if I already invested my money in gold? Smart guy. Gold will shoot up when Trump is elected next month. Out of curiosity, what are the conditions, if any, under which gold would go down?
The Economy gets better/People stop being scared
Gold is kindof a HOLY SHIT THE WORLDS GOING TO END thing. When people don't think that, they don't buy it.
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On October 30 2016 10:54 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2016 10:36 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On October 30 2016 10:30 ChristianS wrote:But what if I already invested my money in gold? Smart guy. Gold will shoot up when Trump is elected next month. Out of curiosity, what are the conditions, if any, under which gold would go down?
from the Berkshire Hathaway guy who is pretty wealthy
1. "Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head."
2. "The problem with commodities is that you are betting on what someone else would pay for them in six months. The commodity itself isn't going to do anything for you….it is an entirely different game to buy a lump of something and hope that somebody else pays you more for that lump two years from now than it is to buy something that you expect to produce income for you over time."
3. "Gold is a way of going long on fear, and it has been a pretty good way of going long on fear from time to time. But you really have to hope people become more afraid in a year or two years than they are now. And if they become more afraid you make money, if they become less afraid you lose money, but the gold itself doesn't produce anything."
4. "I will say this about gold. If you took all the gold in the world, it would roughly make a cube 67 feet on a side…Now for that same cube of gold, it would be worth at today's market prices about $7 trillion – that's probably about a third of the value of all the stocks in the United States…For $7 trillion…you could have all the farmland in the United States, you could have about seven Exxon Mobils (NYSE:XOM) and you could have a trillion dollars of walking-around money…And if you offered me the choice of looking at some 67 foot cube of gold and looking at it all day, and you know me touching it and fondling it occasionally…Call me crazy, but I'll take the farmland and the Exxon Mobils."
5. "The major asset in this category is gold, currently a huge favorite of investors who fear almost all other assets, especially paper money (of whose value, as noted, they are right to be fearful). Gold, however, has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative. True, gold has some industrial and decorative utility, but the demand for these purposes is both limited and incapable of soaking up new production. Meanwhile, if you own one ounce of gold for an eternity, you will still own one ounce at its end."
6. "What motivates most gold purchasers is their belief that the ranks of the fearful will grow. During the past decade that belief has proved correct. Beyond that, the rising price has on its own generated additional buying enthusiasm, attracting purchasers who see the rise as validating an investment thesis. As 'bandwagon' investors join any party, they create their own truth - for a while."
7. "I have no views as to where it will be, but the one thing I can tell you is it won't do anything between now and then except look at you. Whereas, you know, Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) will be making money, and I think Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) will be making a lot of money and there will be a lot - and it's a lot - it's a lot better to have a goose that keeps laying eggs than a goose that just sits there and eats insurance and storage and a few things like that."
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Give me a reason to believe this isn't the usual O'Keefe heavily doctored stuff and we'll talk.
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who's this ol' queef i keep hearing about
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A right-wing filmmaker with an agenda who conducts "stings" on organizations where he concocts incredibly leading questions or convoluted scenarios to create a context where people will say what he wants them to say, then removes the context in the final cut of his films to make people look like racists/human traffickers/etc.
It's quite funny to see people jump to his defense when they've been criticizing liberal media for months about taking things Trump says out of context for the sake of producing headlines, when O'Keefe is literally editing out the context of things people say in his films.
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On October 30 2016 11:04 CorsairHero wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2016 10:54 ChristianS wrote:On October 30 2016 10:36 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On October 30 2016 10:30 ChristianS wrote:But what if I already invested my money in gold? Smart guy. Gold will shoot up when Trump is elected next month. Out of curiosity, what are the conditions, if any, under which gold would go down? from the Berkshire Hathaway guy who is pretty wealthy Show nested quote + 1. "Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head."
2. "The problem with commodities is that you are betting on what someone else would pay for them in six months. The commodity itself isn't going to do anything for you….it is an entirely different game to buy a lump of something and hope that somebody else pays you more for that lump two years from now than it is to buy something that you expect to produce income for you over time."
3. "Gold is a way of going long on fear, and it has been a pretty good way of going long on fear from time to time. But you really have to hope people become more afraid in a year or two years than they are now. And if they become more afraid you make money, if they become less afraid you lose money, but the gold itself doesn't produce anything."
4. "I will say this about gold. If you took all the gold in the world, it would roughly make a cube 67 feet on a side…Now for that same cube of gold, it would be worth at today's market prices about $7 trillion – that's probably about a third of the value of all the stocks in the United States…For $7 trillion…you could have all the farmland in the United States, you could have about seven Exxon Mobils (NYSE:XOM) and you could have a trillion dollars of walking-around money…And if you offered me the choice of looking at some 67 foot cube of gold and looking at it all day, and you know me touching it and fondling it occasionally…Call me crazy, but I'll take the farmland and the Exxon Mobils."
5. "The major asset in this category is gold, currently a huge favorite of investors who fear almost all other assets, especially paper money (of whose value, as noted, they are right to be fearful). Gold, however, has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative. True, gold has some industrial and decorative utility, but the demand for these purposes is both limited and incapable of soaking up new production. Meanwhile, if you own one ounce of gold for an eternity, you will still own one ounce at its end."
6. "What motivates most gold purchasers is their belief that the ranks of the fearful will grow. During the past decade that belief has proved correct. Beyond that, the rising price has on its own generated additional buying enthusiasm, attracting purchasers who see the rise as validating an investment thesis. As 'bandwagon' investors join any party, they create their own truth - for a while."
7. "I have no views as to where it will be, but the one thing I can tell you is it won't do anything between now and then except look at you. Whereas, you know, Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) will be making money, and I think Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) will be making a lot of money and there will be a lot - and it's a lot - it's a lot better to have a goose that keeps laying eggs than a goose that just sits there and eats insurance and storage and a few things like that."
Okay, more specifically, I mean is there any time Nettles wouldn't recommend buying gold? I realize my sarcasm may have been missed (my money is not all in gold), but his financial advice is 1) bet all your money on Donald Trump winning, or 2) buy gold like Glenn Beck was still on TV. The gold part has been his financial advice pretty much at all times and in all places.
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I wish I could draw comics...
I imagine it like this:
Hillary is the last elephant, and there is a huge safari out to hunt her. Sadly all the weapons they have are paperballs. They all throw their paper balls... Nothing happens.... They throw again... Still nothing.... Elephant looks unimpressed.
Republicans: "Okay, this ain't working. BUT LOOK HERE! In this closed crate, we have the ultimate weapon to bring down the elephant. "
Nettles logs into TL to post: "Elephant dead, BUY GOLD"
*opens crate*
tons of paperballs in there...
Republicans: "There surely is the magical paper ball in here, which will bring down the Elephant."
*throwing all the paperballs at the elephant* - nothing happens
Suddenly wikileaks announces: "Soon, I will deliver the ultimate weapon, to bring down the elephant"
Whole safari is cheering. "The elephant is as good as dead!!!"
Nettles logs into TL to post: "Elephant dead, BUY GOLD"
Suddenly O'Keefe: "Hey guys, look here. I have a handgrenade, this will bring the elephant down"
*shows paperball painted in military green*
Nettles logs into TL to post: "Elephant dead, BUY GOLD"
*throws paperball at elephant* - nothing happens.
Some in the safari party are slightly frustrated, but luckily soon the wikileaks delivery will arrive.
Wikileaks announces: "Oh, you thought it would arrive now? nono, wait just a bit longer... but here... there are some paperballs for the wait"
Republicans chime in. "Okay, we have a plan, Here... is a crate... in there is the ultimate weapon..."
Somone asks: "But... isn't this the same crate we tried last time?"
Repubs: "Yeah, but this time... this time it will work"
*opens crates* - more paperballs
Someone: "And aren't those the same paperballs?"
Repubs: "Sure, but this time...."
Nettles logs into TL to post: "Elephant dead, BUY GOLD"
--- more paperball throwing, etc ---
Suddenly a plane flies over.
Wikileaks: "here comes the surprise"
Plane carpetbombs... with paperballs.
Everyone on the safari cheers. "THIS will show em"
Nettles logs into TL to post: "Elephant dead, BUY GOLD"
People notice it is only paperballs... "Uhm... Wikileaks? Is there anything special in there?"
Wikileaks: "Sure, there are a ton of highly sophisticated elephant killers hidden in there! Just look through all those dropped things! several thousands of bombs. There MUST be elephant killers among them"
Everyone starts digging through the sea of paperballs. From time to time someone shouts he found something. Turns out those are just more green painted ones... At least the safari party won't have to starve, as there are some nice risotto recipes between.
So the Republicans start again: "Maybe we should look again in this crate... There may be..."
O'Keefe: "And here, I have another grenade..."
Nettles logs into TL to post: "Elephant dead, BUY GOLD"
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On October 30 2016 10:43 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2016 10:36 LegalLord wrote:On October 30 2016 10:33 Nyxisto wrote:
How would you characterise this? An exercise in looking at it from a narrow-minded perspective and a failure to consider the realistic alternatives, mostly. I don't get it, how is clinging to the one guy who is on a killing spree not narrow minded and how am I discarding the alternatives here? Sticking with Assad means not considering the alternatives, which as the article points out by the way will alienate the last remaining moderate forces if the conflict goes on.
Who is clinging on him ? Are you talking about the Russian ? They analyzed the situation and came to the conclusion that Assad was the only stable not islamist solution in the long run. You can disagree on that (that it is viable in the long run, that it will stabilize the area) but, if you want to find a solution (and not appease your own conscience by putting down "the one guy who is on a killing spree" without anykind of solution for what comes after), you need to show us the viable alternative, that would stabilize the area and prevent further trouble, considering that what you propose (arming the rebels) would in fact destabilize it further.
Note - again - that we are not syrian, and as such, our objective is not the end of trouble in Syria at all cost, nor is it justice (sadly maybe). We also want some kind of insurance in regards to our own safety and our own interests : we (and by we I mean "the occident", but even the world at large) don't want to support, even indirectly, a group that would promote any kind of violence towards us, for exemple. We also don't want the stability of the other power in the region to be in jeopardy because of our decision in regard to Syria. All in all, finishing Assad might be a moral thing to do in a vacuum, but in the long run, today, it seems actually impossible for anyone to propose, with a shred of certainty, a better solution to this "conflict". It's just too late to do anything anyway.
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On October 30 2016 10:53 zlefin wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2016 09:56 biology]major wrote:On October 30 2016 09:45 Ropid wrote:On October 30 2016 07:25 Plansix wrote:
In this case I'm not even sold on the crime itself. If the server lead to someone death, people being at risk or sort of substantive damage of American interests, I might be on board with the claims of corruption. But entire investigation has been all bluster with very little substance. Its about "mismanagement of top secret emails" but no one can really tell us exactly what dangerous secrets were exposed. Or even prove that they were exposed. While looking around the last 24 hours, I've seen speculation somewhere that this is connected to an US attorney office in NYC, the one with US Attorney Preet Bharara at the top. His office seems to do very high profile stuff, see here his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_BhararaThe investigation into Anthony Weiner's wiener is done by prosecutors under him. Here is a news article about them getting to his IT devices: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/22/politics/first-on-cnn-us-attorney-investigating-weiner-sexting-allegations/This is just around a month old. This event should be how documents involving Clinton have gotten into new hands. Comey had originally explained in front of that certain Congress committee that there was nothing super interesting on Clinton's servers. He said he thinks that no US attorney would prosecute whatever was found, and that's the reason the FBI investigation into Clinton's email affair was put to rest. He can't explain this in detail because things are classified, but he promised things were boring. Maybe US Attorney Bharara has found something on those IT devices that will make him open investigation into Clinton, and Comey was messaged this. Maybe Comey bent truth a little when he testified in front of Congress because of political pressure. He now has to rescue the FBI's reputation and came out with that letter to get in front of what Bharara will do next. If you search around a little, there's a lot of several month old news articles about Bharara and the Clinton Foundation. He was supposedly doing a probe into the foundation to see if an investigation should be started or not. The problem is that those news articles seem to all be from media like dailymail.co.uk. There's nothing in reputable media, but reputable journalists routinely show up in Podesta emails with back and forth discussion before releasing articles. This makes you develop conspiracy theories and it's pretty depressing because it all fits together so well. Damn, This Preet guy would seriously drain the swamp in Washington, we need people like him. the amount of actual indictable corruption in washington isn't that high. even if you had omniscient info, it wouldn't reach the level to convict many people.
If Bharara/NYPD are the ones who presented this information to Director Comey, then even if Comey is unable to pursue this fully because of obstruction from Loretta Lynch (She has to provide warrant to search these emails), Preet Bharara should still be able to charge her based on what he finds I believe. I have a feeling Comey is going to get removed from his position before this is all over and Bharara will have to finish this investigation. Crazy theories folks!
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On October 30 2016 11:53 biology]major wrote:Show nested quote +On October 30 2016 10:53 zlefin wrote:On October 30 2016 09:56 biology]major wrote:On October 30 2016 09:45 Ropid wrote:On October 30 2016 07:25 Plansix wrote:
In this case I'm not even sold on the crime itself. If the server lead to someone death, people being at risk or sort of substantive damage of American interests, I might be on board with the claims of corruption. But entire investigation has been all bluster with very little substance. Its about "mismanagement of top secret emails" but no one can really tell us exactly what dangerous secrets were exposed. Or even prove that they were exposed. While looking around the last 24 hours, I've seen speculation somewhere that this is connected to an US attorney office in NYC, the one with US Attorney Preet Bharara at the top. His office seems to do very high profile stuff, see here his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_BhararaThe investigation into Anthony Weiner's wiener is done by prosecutors under him. Here is a news article about them getting to his IT devices: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/22/politics/first-on-cnn-us-attorney-investigating-weiner-sexting-allegations/This is just around a month old. This event should be how documents involving Clinton have gotten into new hands. Comey had originally explained in front of that certain Congress committee that there was nothing super interesting on Clinton's servers. He said he thinks that no US attorney would prosecute whatever was found, and that's the reason the FBI investigation into Clinton's email affair was put to rest. He can't explain this in detail because things are classified, but he promised things were boring. Maybe US Attorney Bharara has found something on those IT devices that will make him open investigation into Clinton, and Comey was messaged this. Maybe Comey bent truth a little when he testified in front of Congress because of political pressure. He now has to rescue the FBI's reputation and came out with that letter to get in front of what Bharara will do next. If you search around a little, there's a lot of several month old news articles about Bharara and the Clinton Foundation. He was supposedly doing a probe into the foundation to see if an investigation should be started or not. The problem is that those news articles seem to all be from media like dailymail.co.uk. There's nothing in reputable media, but reputable journalists routinely show up in Podesta emails with back and forth discussion before releasing articles. This makes you develop conspiracy theories and it's pretty depressing because it all fits together so well. Damn, This Preet guy would seriously drain the swamp in Washington, we need people like him. the amount of actual indictable corruption in washington isn't that high. even if you had omniscient info, it wouldn't reach the level to convict many people. If Bharara/NYPD are the ones who presented this information to Director Comey, then even if Comey is unable to pursue this fully because of obstruction from Loretta Lynch (She has to provide warrant to search these emails), Preet Bharara should still be able to charge her based on what he finds I believe. I have a feeling Comey is going to get removed from his position before this is all over and Bharara will have to finish this investigation. Crazy theories folks!
sounds like a crazy theory indeed 
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EPT
